Automatic Email (Outlook 2000)

Is there a way to have Outlook automatically send an email (probably from a template) to a specific user at a certain time each month?

I know how to set up an automatic "reply" email; and how to create a template. But this is not a reply -- just an pre-formatted email that I want to go out to a certain person at a certain time and date (or just date) in the future.

Re: Automatic Email (Outlook 2000)

Leif's approach can work great for an unattended solution. Some folks want the comfort of pulling the trigger so they "know" it went out, or may need to tweak the message from time to time. Just in case anyone's interested in this approach I've copied in text from one of my how-to documents. It uses a custom, recurring task to send a message. The code can be tweaked to either display the message or just send it.

MS Outlook: Instruction/Procedure

How to Create a Recurring Email Message

Summary or Problem

This FAQ describes a method for creating a recurring reminder e-mail message.

More Information or Steps or Cause

Outlook does not provide a means to create recurring e-mail messages. For example, you might want to send an e-mail message every month to remind a group of people that a report is due. While you can set up appointments and tasks as recurring events, you cannot create a recurring e-mail message.

You can use Visual Basic Script and the recurrence settings of a task to automatically generate a recurring e-mail message. This procedure consists of the following tasks:

Publish a custom task form that creates an e-mail message when the task status equals completed.
Use the custom task form to create a recurring task.
When the task comes due, mark it as completed. The code will generate the boilerplate message, which you then send. At the same time, a new task is created because the original task was set to recur.
Note: The code sample below will cause a mail form to open, giving the user a chance to modify the form. The user must click the send button to actually send the message.

You can further automate the message. If you add the line NewItem.Send immediately below the NewItem.Display line, the message is automatically sent when you mark the task as completed.

Solution

Publish a Custom Task Form
Start Outlook and open your Tasks folder.
On the Actions menu, click New Task.
On the Tools menu, point to Forms, and then click Design This Form.
On the Form menu, click View Code, and type the following code in the Script Editor:
Sub Item_PropertyChange(ByVal Name)
Select Case Name
Case "Status"
if Item.Status = 2 then '2 = Completed
Set NewItem = Application.CreateItem(0)
NewItem.To = "myRecipientList"
NewItem.Recipients.ResolveAll
NewItem.Subject = "mySubjectGoesHere"
NewItem.Body = "This is the body of my message."
NewItem.Display
End IF
End Select
End Sub
In the Script Editor, on the File menu, click Close.
On the Tools menu, point to Forms, and then click Publish Form.
In the Look in list, click Tasks. In the Display Name and Form Name boxes, type Reminder, and then click Publish.
On the File menu, click Close. Do not save changes.
NOTE: In the code, substitute your own information inside the quotation marks for NewItem.To, NewItem.Subject, and NewItem.Body. These lines set the To, Subject, and body of your reminder message.

Create a Recurring Task Using the Custom Form
Open your Tasks folder, where you published the custom reminder form.
On the Actions menu, click New Reminder. This will open a new task based on your custom form.
Type a subject for your reminder task. In Due Date, click to select a due date from the calendar. Click to select the Reminder check box.
On the Actions menu, click Recurrence, and set how often you want the reminder message sent.
Click Save and Close.
To Send Reminder E-mail
When you receive the reminder that the task is due, click Open Item. In the Status box, click to select Completed.

(DO NOT Dismiss the reminder and in your Tasks list. Doing so will turn off reminders for subsequent tasks.)

Setting the task as completed will automatically generate a new task and display an e-mail message containing your boilerplate text. Click Send to send the message.